I have recently purchased the Breadman TR520 Bread Maker. This is one of the more inexpensive bread makers available on the market today and it is a simple unit to use.
The TR520 has eight automatic settings that make it very simple to program for whatever bread you are making. These settings are for basic white bread, fast bake, French bread, whole wheat bread, sweet, quick bread, dough, and bake-only. The TR520 will make three different size loafs of bread: 1, 1 ½, and 2 pound loaves, and has three crust color settings: light, medium, and dark.
The 64 page manual that comes with the TR520 is full of helpful tips to make your bread making easy and a success, along with many good recipes for making many different types of bread. All of the functions are well explained in the manual, which includes a chart that shows the bake time for all the different types of bread, loaves, and crust color settings.
One of the features that I was really interested in when I bought the TR520 was the fast bake setting. Most loaves of bread take three to four hours to bake, but with the fast bake setting you have a two pound loaf of bread in one hour. When you select the fast bake setting, you do not have all of the other options to choose from. You can make a two pound loaf of basic white bread with a medium crust and that is all. If you want anything else you will have to wait the three to four hours for the loaf of bread.
The basic bread setting is for your basic white bread recipes and for most of the prepackaged bread mixes. The French bread setting is for recipes that are low in fat and sugar, which gives you a loaf with a crisp crust and chewy interior. The whole wheat setting is for recipes that are more than 50% whole wheat. The sweet bread setting is for recipes that are high in fat, sugar, eggs, or cheese. The quick bread setting is for recipes that use baking powder or baking soda instead of yeast to make the bread or cake rise. The dough setting is for making dough to use in other things. This is great for making homemade pizza crusts, or really good pretzels. The bake-only setting is for baking breads or cakes for longer periods. This setting can be set in ten minute increments.
The recipes in the manual are very well written, with a list of ingredients that includes measurements for 1, 1 ½, and 2 pound loaves as well as for active dry yeast, quick rise yeast, and bread machine yeast. The ingredient list is followed by very thorough step-by-step instructions for adding the ingredients, setting the programs and starting the baking process.
The recipes range from simple white bread, one of my favorites, to a honey wheat bread, rye bread, and cinnamon-raisin bread. The quick bread section has banana nut, cranberry nut, corn, zucchini, and apple walnut bread recipes, all of which sound pretty good. The dough section includes bagel, dinner rolls, whole wheat pizza crust, regular pizza crust, almond cherry coffee cake, soft pretzel, and cinnamon roll dough recipes.
So far I have made about eight loaves of bread in the TR520 and have really been pleased with each loaf. I have made a couple of fast bake loaves, a couple of French bread loaves, and the rest have been basic white bread loaves. All have been very good and much better than most of the bread available in the average grocery store. The only complaint I have with the Breadman TR520 is the yellow sticker with white writing on the control panel, which is a bit hard to read, so until you get familiar with the setting,s it is a little hard to see what you are setting the machine to do.
So, I know what you are thinking. “Enough with the sales pitch already. this is a food blog”. Show us the food, man. I will, but you will have to wait for my next post. I have a comparison of a couple of loaves I am working on for next time.
Clacked by Jeff Love
on Dec 20, 2009 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
